Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is to outsiders?

[maverick1]

I work for a foreign corporation with facilities here in Metro-Detroit. Recently I had a discussion with some young European co-workers that were here on short-term assignment. They all told me that they didn't care much for Metro-Detroit. They weren't crazy about Downtown Detroit or the suburbs. They stayed in Novi. Their dislike of the suburbs was equal to their dislike of Downtown Detroit. Take Detroit proper out the picture. No one I know in cities such as DC, NY, Miami, etc. says "Detroit sucks but its suburbs are world class". This makes me wonder. Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is nationally and globally? And are they aware of how unattractive it is to single people or people under 40?

[antongast]

I don't think most people are unaware of it so much as they're wedded to an incorrect analysis of how it got that way and what should be done about it.

[finster]

I don't think to many people around here hold any illusions about the outside worlds perception of Detroit and it's environs. Take what your read on internet forums from some of the locals [[which is at least based on somewhat real experiences) and multiply it tenfold in nastiness and that's about what the outside world thinks of Detroit. No matter how many excellent things we have the only ones they know about are the abandonment, rapes, and murders that they read about.

Unfortunately, I don't see this changing much in the near future.

[Zaiko]

Another guy on this forum, Bham1982, and Brooks Patterson will argue for hours how the suburbs are world class and the city sucks.

[Bham1982]

Another guy on this forum, Bham1982, and Brooks Patterson will argue for hours how the suburbs are world class and the city sucks.

I've never said anything close to this, but feel free to troll away...

BTW, I am European-born, and the anecdotal observations made on this thread are the exact opposite of my anecdotal observations.

The European expats I know and work with love living in the area, and many seek to stay, which surprises me. In short, the lifestyle available in the U.S. is unattainable in Europe. You can't have a full size car, a house with a yard, or leafy surroundings with squirrels/deer etc. in your backyard.

Basically people fetishise the other. That's why Americans go bonkers for Europe, and vice-versa. We go there and say "wow, the trains are so frequent, and the old towns so charming". They come here and say "wow, the homes are so big and everything is so spacious".

[antongast]

I've never said anything close to this, but feel free to troll away...

BTW, I am European-born, and the anecdotal observations made on this thread are the exact opposite of my anecdotal observations.

The European expats I know and work with love living in the area, and many seek to stay, which surprises me. In short, the lifestyle available in the U.S. is unattainable in Europe. You can't have a full size car, a house with a yard, or leafy surroundings with squirrels/deer etc. in your backyard.

Basically people fetishise the other. That's why Americans go bonkers for Europe, and vice-versa. We go there and say "wow, the trains are so frequent, and the old towns so charming". They come here and say "wow, the homes are so big and everything is so spacious".

Sounds to me like there's some self-selection at work there. Europeans who pursue opportunities to live and work in the US probably disproportionately come from the segment of the European population that enjoys things like big cars and detached houses with yards the most, and Americans who pursue opportunities to visit Europe and then rave about the historic cities and quality transit to friends back home probably disproportionately come from the segment of the American population that values those things the most.

[iheartthed]

Sounds to me like there's some self-selection at work there. Europeans who pursue opportunities to live and work in the US probably disproportionately come from the segment of the European population that enjoys things like big cars and detached houses with yards the most, and Americans who pursue opportunities to visit Europe and then rave about the historic cities and quality transit to friends back home probably disproportionately come from the segment of the American population that values those things the most.

I would go even further and say that it just seems to be the type of Europeans who end up in Detroit. I have quite a few foreign born friendsand coworkers and they all complain about the same things that Detroit lacks which us Dyes "urbanophiles" complain about. And since I know that NYC [[where I work) attracts far more foreigners than Detroit [[absolute numbers and per capita) then I have to think there is something about NYC that is more attractive than Metro Detroit.

[SteveJ]

We all know that the whole world thinks that the city of Detroit is a shithole. This thread is going to accomplish nothing.

[313WX]

We all know that the whole world thinks that the city of Detroit is a shithole. This thread is going to accomplish nothing.

As always, your reading comprehension is lacking.

[Gsgeorge]

I work for a foreign corporation with facilities here in Metro-Detroit. Recently I had a discussion with some young European co-workers that were here on short-term assignment. They all told me that they didn't care much for Metro-Detroit. They weren't crazy about Downtown Detroit or the suburbs. They stayed in Novi. Their dislike of the suburbs was equal to their dislike of Downtown Detroit. Take Detroit proper out the picture. No one I know in cities such as DC, NY, Miami, etc. says "Detroit sucks but its suburbs are world class". This makes me wonder. Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is nationally and globally? And are they aware of how unattractive it is to single people or people under 40?

I think in general you're more like to find Europeans who loathe the suburbs but love spending time in the city proper. Then again, one of the Europeans' biggest attractions here is Cranbrook, deep in the 'unattractive' suburbs.

[Gistok]

I work for a foreign corporation with facilities here in Metro-Detroit. Recently I had a discussion with some young European co-workers that were here on short-term assignment. They all told me that they didn't care much for Metro-Detroit. They weren't crazy about Downtown Detroit or the suburbs. They stayed in Novi. Their dislike of the suburbs was equal to their dislike of Downtown Detroit. Take Detroit proper out the picture. No one I know in cities such as DC, NY, Miami, etc. says "Detroit sucks but its suburbs are world class". This makes me wonder. Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is nationally and globally? And are they aware of how unattractive it is to single people or people under 40?

Maybe your looking at it from the wrong perspective... you're asking people from other countries who are sent here on temporary assignments, and have likely been given no orientation overview of metro Detroit at all.

I give tours to large [[bus full) cultural groups from Europe [[mainly Germany, Austria and Hungary), who are on tour visiting ethnic social clubs across the USA to perform. While in Detroit [[home base German club in Sterling Heights), I give the groups a daytime bus tour, while they perform in Sterling Heights in the evening.

My tour takes them down Jefferson starting at 11 Mile, so that they see St. Clair Shores Nautical Mile [[hundreds of acres of boats)... then into the Grosse Pointes for a tour of the Ford House [[and lunch). Then we head down Lakeshore Dr., and into Detroit, where they see the decimated East Jefferson/Chalmers area [[so they see some of the worst we have)... and then once around Belle Isle for a photo op. Then I take them downtown to the Guardian Building.... and then once around on the People Mover, pointing out the convention center, waterfront, and One Woodward Ave. [[prototype for the World Trade Center)... then we go up to Comerica Park where they have a photo op in front of one of the giant tiger statues, and then a tour of the Fox Theatre. Then it's back onto I-94 to head back to Sterling Heights.

After this orientation, the visitors [[ages 18-72) are always impressed with much of what metro Detroit has to offer. By the time they get to Chicago, where their hosts usually take them mall shopping, and maybe a tour around the loop, the visitors often tell them how wonderful Detroit is... to bewildered Chicago hosts!

But if you plop down a foreign worker into a Metro Detroit suburb, and much of what they see first are nearby strip malls from their hotel rooms... then yeah... the suburbs look as bad as Detroit.... First impressions are very important... so it sounds as though the foreign company that you work for doesn't offer any first impressions, except for some suburban office park and likely some nearby sterile hotel room...

[EastsideAl]

I think American suburbs in general are unattractive to Europeans. They just are not used to spread-out auto-centric neighborhoods, endless stretches of 1960s - 1990s architecture [[or, should I say "architecture"?), and shopping in giant hermetically sealed spaces surrounded by vast parking lots. So, what many Americans see as open, airy, and convenient, appears to folks from Europe as uninteresting, culture-less, and desolate.

The problem here in Detroit is that, unlike many other American cities, our urban center is also sorely lacking. Detroit, with its large areas of separated single family homes, already wouldn't meet a lot of outsiders' expectation of a city. But the large-scale abandonment of the city by its former residents, and increasingly its more recent ones, and the lack of normal street life in much of the city has left large stretches of the city essentially a giant void. And some of the near-downtown areas that would seem to be most promising to an outsider, like, say, Brush Park, are inexplicably mostly abandoned and shockingly empty. Even areas we tend to think of as densely urban, like Midtown, can seem relatively empty and desolate to outsiders when compared to most other large cities.

I'm also sure that the feeling they run into from a lot of their suburbanite co-workers - that to travel into the city is likely to end in one's live vivisection - really doesn't help either. And our area's least attractive characteristics, its deeply seated and often openly expressed racism, its knee-jerk racial politics, and a racial divide much more severe than any other present-day American city, is definitely deeply off-putting.

Oh, and I hate to break this to ol' Brooksie, but there's no such thing as a "world-class" suburb.

[maverick1]

Maybe your looking at it from the wrong perspective... you're asking people from other countries who are sent here on temporary assignments, and have likely been given no orientation overview of metro Detroit at all.

Maybe I am looking at it from the wrong perspective. Although the national consensus is that the whole region is bad also. lol. I wonder if the company gives our European employees a tour similar to what you give. That would give a complete picture.

[Kathleen]

I work for a foreign corporation with facilities here in Metro-Detroit. Recently I had a discussion with some young European co-workers that were here on short-term assignment. They all told me that they didn't care much for Metro-Detroit. They weren't crazy about Downtown Detroit or the suburbs. They stayed in Novi. Their dislike of the suburbs was equal to their dislike of Downtown Detroit. Take Detroit proper out the picture. No one I know in cities such as DC, NY, Miami, etc. says "Detroit sucks but its suburbs are world class". This makes me wonder. Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is nationally and globally? And are they aware of how unattractive it is to single people or people under 40?

Has anyone in your company taken the time to show your colleagues around the city and metro area? For the last several years, working with colleagues from India, California, and the UK that were on short-term assignments in our suburban Detroit offices, I've taken them on tours lasting from 3 to 10 hours, depending on the day and availability, on my own time, to share some of Detroit's historic and cultural treasures with them. All have enjoyed their experiences and some have asked for follow-up tours on subsequent stays.

I can't imagine being sent to a place where I'm holed up in a hotel room with little or no access to transportation when not working in the office. With mostly malls to visit in Novi, who wouldn't think little of the area?

[DetroitPlanner]

I can't imagine being sent to a place where I'm holed up in a hotel room with little or no access to transportation when not working in the office. With mostly malls to visit in Novi, who wouldn't think little of the area?

Excellent point. Many suburbs are simply unwalkable and lack any way to get around. It must be like prison. I doubt many companies are willing to put people up at the Townsend or Westin for three months. Most likely they get put into a long term hotel on a flag lot outside of a freeway interchange. Think Auburn Hills I-75 corridor or Ann Arbor's State St exit. Just dreadful for walking. The issue here can be found in the developer as well as the city planning commissions that have no good examples to strive for.

[wazootyman]

One more thing I just thought of: When I traveled to Germany last fall, I rented a car and took public transportation exactly zero times. I parked in a parking garage in my suburban-style hotel. I went to a mall that was basically German Twelve Oaks. I drove to the office and airport.

In fact, I can't think of any of my coworkers that regularly take public transportation. They drive. Germans love their cars more than we do.

Germany certainly has vibrant urban centers and public transportation. But my coworkers must not realize how unattractive living in suburban Bavaria is - you know, with the sprawl, malls and highways [[I say that tongue-in-cheek).

[401don]

From what I've seen, suburbs are suburbs. What exactly makes European ones so special?

[EastsideAl]

The things I have found most attractive to the foreigners I've hosted in Detroit [[mostly Japanese, and some Europeans) are mostly in the city itself. The Eastern Market on a market Saturday, Hart Plaza during one of our big music festivals, Belle Isle and the riverfront in general [[the boat tours work well in the summertime), our magnificent older office buildings - particularly the Guardian and Fisher Buildings, the DIA with the Rivera Court, Motown and anything else that remains of our African-American musical heritage,the Fox Theater [[which really should be open for regular tours), and the many semi-hidden but wonderful restaurants, bars, and music venues that I'm sure a lot of us could name.

Outside of the city proper, the Polish and growing South Asian community in Hamtramck, and particularly the Arabic community in Dearborn have been big hits. And, of course, the Henry Ford/Greenfield Village complex, and, biggest of all, the Ford Rouge tour.

But actually living here, and living the way most middle-class and well-off people in the Detroit area live, is just not terribly attractive to people from overseas. They're generally used to actual functioning large cities, not the historical residue of one as we have here in Detroit. The local notion of nirvana as a house with a big yard in the "safe" with "good schools" suburbs, having two cars and driving to do absolutely everything, spending weekends mowing the lawn and going to the mall, eating and drinking mostly in restaurants and bars that are part of big generic national chains, and trying to ignore as much as possible the actual city you're living around [[except for watching their sports teams on TV), is just not shared by most Europeans and Japanese in my experience, and most certainly not the young ones.

When I've had the time to take them there, Ann Arbor seems much more open and welcoming, and yes, "urban" than anything in the Detroit area, especially to Europeans. They've found the contrast between small, but very active, AA, and the huge, but often devoid of street life, Detroit area to be very strange and confusing.

[Patrick]

And here we are with yet another City VS Suburbs pissing match...

The OP mentioned:

Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is nationally and globally? And are they aware of how unattractive it is to single people or people under 40?

Well, my Italian cousins loved Somerset and all the “space” that we have in the suburbs, but no, they weren’t blown away by it, except for the sheer size. However, they didn’t NOT like the suburbs of Detroit. As a matter of fact, I have never really heard anyone in SE Michigan boast about how “awesome” the suburbs are. They liked Target and Meijer and convenience stores as well. The loved the waterfront from the RenCen all the way up to Selfridge though...and they were from one of the waterfront centers of Europe...Genoa.

It is interesting for me because I moved from the Detroit suburbs to the DC area and I would take the “suburbs” of Detroit over Northern Virginia or Maryland any day of the week. The two advantages that the DC suburbs have over Detroit are the public transportation as well as having the nation’s best job market. I have taken American friends to the Detroit area and can't say I have had anyone biatch about the place. Look, suburbs were not meant to blow anyone away.

I started a thread years ago about the European fascination with Detroit proper. Can’t really say much about the Euro opinion of the SE Michigan suburbs, but I have taken “outsiders” into Detroit and they were absolutely blown away by the DIA and the Motown museum as well as the architecture. All of them came into the city knowing about its bad reputation.

[maverick1]

And here we are with yet another City VS Suburbs pissing match...

It's not a City vs. Suburbs pissing match. I said "Their dislike of the suburbs was equal to their dislike of Downtown Detroit." Where is the pissing match in this? I didn't say one sucked and the other didn't. I tend to encounter a way of thinking that says "Detroit is bad but it's great over here" and from what I get from the conversation with my foreign co-workers and friends that live in one of the 10 largest cities in America is that Metro-Detroit on a whole is an unattractive place to live.

[iheartthed]

It's not just Europeans who find Metro Detroit unattractive. Americans, Asians and Africans don't like it too much either. I have been in countless conversations where I am defending Metro Detroit but the flaws still outweigh the positives.

[SteveJ]

It's not just Europeans who find Metro Detroit unattractive. Americans, Asians and Africans don't like it too much either. I have been in countless conversations where I am defending Metro Detroit but the flaws still outweigh the positives.

Yeah, affordable housing, safe neighborhood, and decent schools. I'm just dying to move to NYC so I can dedicate 90% of my income to rent.

[j to the jeremy]

Yeah, affordable housing, safe neighborhood, and decent schools. I'm just dying to move to NYC so I can dedicate 90% of my income to rent.

inject some more sarcasm and rhetoric, that'll teach 'em!

[iheartthed]

Yeah, affordable housing, safe neighborhood, and decent schools. I'm just dying to move to NYC so I can dedicate 90% of my income to rent.

NYC grew by nearly 200,000 people between 2000 - 2010, while Metro Detroit shrank by well over 200,000 people during the same time period. Nuff said.

[GUSHI]

NYC grew by nearly 200,000 people between 2000 - 2010, while Metro Detroit shrank by well over 200,000 people during the same time period. Nuff said.

NYC is dirty and over priced, my aunt live on 5th ave across from central park, it's definitely walkable, unlike most parts of Detroit, but they do have a lot of rats, litter, and you just feel dirty in the city,